Elizabeth Warren: You know who’s really to blame for this financial crisis and middle-class erosion? Reagan.

posted at 8:41 pm on May 20, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Because when President Barack Obama was blaming every problem under the sun on his predecessor President George W. Bush, he just wasn’t go back far enough. Via RCP:

WARREN: I grew up in an America that was investing in kids. It was investing in public universities. It had a higher minimum wage. It was an America that said every kid would get a fighting chance. And that’s how we built America’s great middle class. Then starting in about the 1980s, we turned in a different direction.

COLBERT: You mean when Reagan came in and it was morning in America. The direction toward greatness, pride. …

WARREN: That’s right. And what happened is that he had a couple of ideas. The first one was that they would fire the cops. Not the ones on Main Street but the ones on Wall Street.

COLBERT: The ones who were shackling creativity, and ingenuity in our financial institutions.

WARREN: And making sure the biggest financial institutions actually followed the law. Those were the cops they got rid of.

COLBERT: The law – that’s a vague term, law. Your — one man’s law is another person’s regulations. And regulation is bad. Regulation stifles business and stifles entrepreneurship.

WARREN: No, no. no. See if we don’t have happens is exactly what happened then. And that is the big financial institutions made billions of dollars by cheating people on credit cards, mortgages.

COLBERT: What do you mean cheating people on credit cards? You sign up for a credit card, you use the credit card and then you have to pay your bills. Is that too complicated for Harvard? …

WARREN: Let’s be clear about this. It was supporting having the regulators look the other way while the biggest financial institutions did every trick and every trap possible in credit cards, in mortgages, in checking account rules. And they made billions of dollars doing it. And at the same time they loaded up on risk. And what ultimately happened by 2008 was that they broke the economy. They got bailed out by the taxpayers. They continued to break the law in foreclosing on people’s mortgages.

After such a strong dose of oversimplified yet underhanded populism, all I can do at the moment is point you to the WSJ’s review of her book she was on Colbert’s show promoting… and shake. My. Head.

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WARREN: I grew up in an America that was investing in kids. It was investing in public universities. It had a higher minimum wage. It was an America that said every kid would get a fighting chance. And that’s how we built America’s great middle class. Then starting in about the 1980s, we turned in a different direction.

Dear Princess Liawatha, please point to where the nominal minimum wage went down on this chart.

WARREN: No, no. no. See if we don’t have happens is exactly what happened then. And that is the big financialundergraduate institutions made billions of dollars by cheating people on credit cards, mortgagesstudent loans.

WARREN: I grew up in an America that was investing in kids. It was investing in public universities. It had a higher minimum wage. It was an America that said every kid would get a fighting chance. And that’s how we built America’s great middle class. Then starting in about the 1980s, we turned in a different direction.

You taught law at mostly private schools through the 1980s. Definitely turning in a different direction, no?

If Reagan did anything that is causing problems with the economy and erosion of the middle class of today its amnesty, undercuts wages, creates many more democrats, and has been destroying our culture.

Consider the damage already done by deceivers like Elizabeth Warren and the damage they still seek to do. Consider this; Our federal government is responsible for many of the problems faced today by this country and its citizens. The 2008 economic collapse was created not by banks and the subprime lending practices as has become conventional wisdom, but rather a deliberate action of the federal government through a law called the Community Reinvestiment Act. Signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter, the CRA encouraged banks to do things that they previously thought too risky, provide mortgages to people who could not afford them. The banks, now demonized by the federal government and uninformed people, understood that the lending practices encouraged by the law would lead to increased bank loses and bank failures. The banks understood that these loans were against their own interests and were slow to provide them. To further encourage the banks to offer these high risk, low return loans, the administration of President Bill Clinton used federal agencies like HUD under the leadership of Andrew Cuomo, FANNIE MAE, FREDDIE MAC and the FHA under the supervision of politicians like Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, to implement policies that would assist banks in transferring the risk and eventual losses to the American tax payer, other lesser banks and various insurance companies. Still not fully willing to risk viability, the banks were soon targeted by the DOJ for refusing to give subprime loans. Attorney General Janet Reno publicly declared that she would file criminal actions against banks that refused to provide the loans. Numerous special interest groups then joined in and began to file suits against the banks. A little known Chicago lawyer and community activist named Barack Obama was just one attorney to file against the banks. The banks finally caved to the tremendous pressure and began to offer loans to nearly anyone who asked. The result was a housing bubble that created the false belief that the nation was experiencing unprecedented growth. Unfortunately, all bubbles burst and as more and more borrowers failed to make their mortgage payments, more and more banks were placed under severe stress. That stress ultimately brought the 2008 economic collapse that nearly brought another Great Depression upon the whole world. It is a collapse from which millions of Americans still have not recovered. To deflect blame for its actions, the federal government and various federal officials spoke out against the banks and actually enacted laws they say will prevent banks from engaging in such risky behavior again.

You think that it was unwise for the federal government to cause such risky lending? Ask yourself why the federal government has entered into ‘free trade’ agreements that have caused millions of Americans jobs to be shipped off shore and are now filled by slave labor in third world nations. Ask yourself why the federal government is pushing closer to legalize millions of illegal immigrants now in this country who have artificially lowered the wages of American workers by offering to work for less off the books and who stand ready to legally compete for your job once Amnesty is passed. Once these illegal immigrants are legalized, they will legally be able to compete for every American job, only at a lower wage than those people holding those jobs today. The federal government is essentially working at importing slave labor for those employers who have not yet exported their jobs to slave labor nations.

These acts and others by the federal government are contrary to the economic health and national security of the nation. These acts are treasonous. This nation will not long stand if the American people do not act to remove the corrupt and remain watchful of the honest. The national news media has already proven that they will not assist in properly informing the electorate and holding our government accountable.

She’s just another in a long line of libs stoking the victims of conservatives talking points fire. An empty head that is incapable of rational thought is required by the left to get ahead. She didn’t even realize that Colbert was mocking her and her gibberish book. Maybe he remembers just how sweet it was under Carter, you know the gas lines, wearing sweaters indoors and the higher than Everest home mortgage rates. If those were good times for her, she needs more wine.

What a surprise coming from such a callous, feckless, and mendacious fascist ideologue who repeatedly lied to leverage affirmative action almost as much as Barack Obama (another narcissistic, callous, petulant, feckless, and mendacious fascist ideologue) has done… two contemptuous peas in the same fascist pod.

I listened to her and thought this woman is brainless, knows nothing, and lies like a carpet on the floor, as do most liberals and Democrats. Yet, she gets elected by the braindead in her state! Incredible that we Americans have allowed ourselves to be treated like slaves and employees, when the shoe should be on the other foot because they ARE OUR employees and we need to fire them pronto. Otherwise, kiss America goodbye.

I’ve always wondered why liberal politicians have no fears in blaming previous Republicans on what ails us, but you won’t find any so-called conservative talking about the damage that FDR and LBJ did to us. It’s like they’re afraid of the media jumping on them, squeamish milquetoasts that they are. They’re only interested in having power because the fact that somebody else might have it instead makes them physically ill.

All Reagan’s fault is Thom Hartman’s standard line on the radio. It taps into the visceral hatred directed at Bush, now rendered nonsensical given Mr Obama’s continuation of the WoT, drones, Homeland Security, TSA, NSA, military surplus gear to the police, silence on Guantanamo, etc. “Remember, this is the sort of people you hate”. Restates Republicans are for the rich, bankers, powerful, out to control and crush the little guy.
The argument of taxing the rich carries weight with people, in my experience. Especially wrt CEO pay, references to Google, Apple not paying taxes. I counter it by pointing out that my Mom has a house, because my father worked, my grandparents on both sides built homes during the depression. One bought wood over a long period, saving it up.
Kings owned all, families inherited all. Russia and China are swimming in billionaires, the rest get scraps.
The object is equal opportunity, not equal outcome. The chance to freely follow the dream. All seem to agree at that point, well yeah, that is true. The only guarantee is that if we do not do it for ourselves, we are not going to get it. Folks recognize this as true. But still insist the rich are too rich, not paying their “fair share”.

You are nuts. Gas prices doubled between 2003 and 2008 and they remain high, and not only prices for gas. That is no accident. That a consequence of Bush/Obama and both parties in congress, in collusion with the Fed, spending on: wars, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, farm bills, stimulus bills, GM bailout, TARP, Cash for Clunkers, mortgage deduction, Hurricane Sandy pork, unemployment compensation and extensions, increase in SS disability. That’s not a complete list. Where do you think all that money’s been coming from?

rickv404 on May 21, 2014 at 8:42 AM

Gasoline is a single commodity, and hardly indicative of inflation in the overall economy. Inflation has remained consistently low since Volcker. As for where the money comes from to pay for various programs, it’s a combination of borrowing and tax revenue. While that creates problems for the Federal budget, it hasn’t generated any appreciable inflation.

This woman is the results of the over abundance of low information voters in her state. Can you say delusional and not get a picture of this this woman.

What are you basing “low information voters” on, besides the fact that they don’t happen to agree with you?

In Massachusetts, 39.1% of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, more than 10 percentage points above the national rate of 28.5%. Additionally, 16.8% of adults have a graduate or professional degree, again the highest percentage in the nation. Although the median annual earnings of $53,765 for those with a bachelor’s degree is very high, adults with either a graduate or a professional degree earn far more. Their median earnings exceed $70,000. Academic success is not limited to adults, as nearly 97% of individuals between the ages of 16 and 19 are either enrolled in high school or have graduated — one of the country’s highest rates.

I’ve dealt with many with advanced degrees. Most are very capable engineers and don’t have to use their curriculum vitae as a shield, however I find that a few, when they are falling behind in an argument/discussion/proposal they drop the ‘I have a PhD in suchandsuch.’

The 2008 economic collapse was created not by banks and the subprime lending practices as has become conventional wisdom, but rather a deliberate action of the federal government through a law called the Community Reinvestiment Act. Signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter, the CRA encouraged banks to do things that they previously thought too risky, provide mortgages to people who could not afford them.

You can keep repeating this lie but it’s still a lie. As has been shown over and over the CRA house mortgages through Fanny and Freedy had lower rates of default than those loans given out by private banks. There’s no way to spin the collapse as the fault of poor minorities no matter how much you desperately need to take the blame off of the idiot rich bankers who thought they were just too smart to abide by regulations.

The conventional wisdom is what it is because it happens to be right. The problem was not that blacks actually got to be homeowners but that there was insufficient enforcement of regulation on bankers who decided to make quick bucks at the cost of destroying our economy because fundamentally smart people do not go into business, greedy people do.

You can keep repeating this lie but it’s still a lie. As has been shown over and over the CRA house mortgages through Fanny and Freedy had lower rates of default than those loans given out by private banks. There’s no way to spin the collapse as the fault of poor minorities no matter how much you desperately need to take the blame off of the idiot rich bankers who thought they were just too smart to abide by regulations.

The conventional wisdom is what it is because it happens to be right. The problem was not that blacks actually got to be homeowners but that there was insufficient enforcement of regulation on bankers who decided to make quick bucks at the cost of destroying our economy because fundamentally smart people do not go into business, greedy people do.